Women's Basketball

SPARTANS OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCE 2017-18 CANADA WEST SCHEDULE

Jun 22, 2017

LANGLEY, British Columbia – Trinity Western’s women’s basketball team will open its 2017-18 Canada West regular season campaign Oct. 27-28 with a road trip to play Alberta, before returning home Nov. 3-4 to host UNBC in the Spartans home-opening weekend at the Langley Events Centre.

SCHEDULE HIGHLIGHTS
• TWU’s season-opening trip to Alberta will see the Pandas and Spartans renew acquaintances after a one-year hiatus. The teams last played in 2015-16, when Alberta earned a two-game weekend sweep on home court.
• The Spartans home-opener is against UNBC. Last year, the Timberwolves and Spartans split their weekend series in Prince George, B.C.
• The Spartans will host Brandon Dec. 1-2 in a rematch of last year’s Canada West Quarter-Final best-of-three series, which saw TWU rally with back-to-back wins to earn its first ever playoff series victory.
• The annual home and home series with Fraser Valley is Jan. 4-5, with TWU hosting a rare Thursday night game before travelling to Abbotsford, B.C. for the Friday rematch.
• TWU travels to Saskatoon Jan. 19-20 to play the defending Canada West champion Huskies.
• The ratings performance index (RPI) will be once again used to seed playoff teams, but with alterations.
o The new formula, listed below, has been amended to both increase the value of a team’s win/loss record, while reducing the value assigned for away wins and increasing the value for home wins.
• In addition to the altered RPI formula, a new playoff format is also coming to Canada West basketball this season, as the conference eliminated the Final Four tournament in favour of a one-game championship hosted by the highest remaining seed.
o The bronze medal game will be played at the highest remaining seed if necessary to determine national tournament berths.

The formula that will be used in 2017-18, with changes in bold, is as follows:
RPI = 35% team winning percentage (WP) x 1.1 away win + 0.9 home win, 40% opponents' average winning percentage (OWP), and 25% opponents' opponent’s average winning percentage (OOWP).